insect decline – Desdemona Despair

The global Living Planet Index, 1970-2020. The LPI is based on 34,836 monitored populations of 5,495 vertebrate species. The white line represents the index value, and the shaded areas represent the statistical uncertainty surrounding the value. Graphic: WWF / ZSL

October 19, 2024

Global biodiversity report shows “catastrophic decline” in wildlife populations – “In just my lifetime, 50 years, we’ve seen a decline of 73 percent in the average size of these wildlife populations”

By Molly McCrea 18 October 2024 (CBS News) – A shocking new report on global biodiversity is detailing what it calls “a catastrophic decline” in wildlife populations ahead of a major international conference on biodiversity. On Monday, 21 October 2024, the United Nations will convene a two-week conference in Cali, Colombia called COP16. On the agenda […]

Moths attracted to a light trap in the Area de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG) in Costa Rica in May 1984, May 2007, and May 2019. Photo: Daniel Janzen and Winnie Hallwachs

April 28, 2024

They turned cattle ranches into tropical forest — then climate change hit

By Justine Calma 27 April 2024 (The Verge) – Ecologist Daniel Janzen wades into the field, clutching a walking stick in one hand and a fist full of towering green blades of grass in the other to steady himself. Winnie Hallwachs, also an ecologist and Janzen’s wife, watches him closely, carrying a hat that she […]

(a) Maps of the Pacific Northwest U.S. showing the median annual flight hours between November 1st and January 31st for Historical, and near-future, mid-future, and distant-future time frames for two RCPs, (b) elevations with Cascade and Rocky Mountain ranges marked, (c) Map of the continental United States with highlighted study area (grey). The historical panel of ‘a’ marks two locations in Washington State, Omak, and Richland, which are referenced in the text. Note that the elevation data is not used in any analysis and is provided solely for visual context. Graphic: Rajagopalan, et al., 2024 / Nature Scientific Reports

April 28, 2024

Western honeybee colonies at risk of collapse, WSU study finds – “They’re really the glue in our ecosystems. And you never notice the glue — until it stops working.”

By Conrad Swanson 1 April 2024 (The Seattle Times) – One of nature’s most important keystone species is working itself to death. Colonies of honeybees — crucial pollinators for a wide variety of plants and cash crops — are at risk of collapse because of climate change, a recent study by scientists at Washington State University and […]

Evolutionary changes in floral, vegetative, reproductive and rewarding traits, and attractiveness of Viola arvensis. We measured floral traits (a, b) in the first five developed flowers per individual (N ≈ 4000). (a) Floral area (multiplication of labellum width × corolla length). (b) Number of nectar guides. (c) Rosette diameter, measured on each plant at the start of flowering (n = 792). (d) Log-ratio of seeds produced in self-pollination compared to open pollination as a proxy of selfing ability, measured by collecting one fruit in self-pollination and one in open pollination per plant (n = 693). (e) Nectar production measured as the sum of the volume in three flowers per plants on fifty plants per population (n = 400). (f) Bumblebee preferences measured as proportion of visits per plant to a mixed plantation of 10 plants of the ancestral and 10 of the descendant populations of a single locality, exposed together to bumblebees. We recorded the number of visits to each plant by a flying bumblebee for 10 to 15 min in 6 to 8 replicates per location and divided it by the total number of visits during the flight (only visited plants are represented). The first two letters are the name of the locality (Co, Commeny; Cr, Crouy; Gu, Guernes; Lh, Lhuys). ‘A’ (triangles) ancestral population (collected in 2000 for Co, 1993 for Cr, 2001 for Gu and 1992 for Lh) and ‘D’ (circles) descendant population (all collected in 2021). Graphic: Samson Acoca-Pidolle, et al., 2023 / New Phytologist

December 26, 2023

Flowers “giving up” on scarce insects and evolving to self-pollinate, say scientists – “Our results show that the ancient interactions linking pansies to their pollinators are disappearing fast”

By Phoebe Weston 19 December 202 (The Guardian) – Flowers are “giving up on” pollinators and evolving to be less attractive to them as insect numbers decline, researchers have said. A study has found the flowers of field pansies growing near Paris are 10% smaller and produce 20% less nectar than flowers growing in the same fields […]

Seasonal managed honeybee colony loss rates in the United States across years 2008-2023 (A), and by operation type (B-D): backyard (managing up to 50 colonies), sideline (managing 51-500), and commercial (managing >500 colonies) beekeepers. The loss rate was calculated as the total number of colonies lost divided by the number of colonies at risk during the season. Colonies at risk were composed of living colonies at the start of a period, as well as new colonies made or acquired, while excluding colonies sold or parted with. Annual loss covers the whole period from one 1 April to the next 1 April (in red); summer (1 April – 1 October, in yellow); winter (1 October – 1 April, in blue). Error bars represent the 95% confidence interval obtained from a bootstrap resampling of the data (n-out-of-n, 1000 rep). Graphic: Bee Informed Partnership

June 30, 2023

Nearly half of U.S. honeybee colonies died in the 2022-2023 season – “This is a very troubling loss number when we barely manage sufficient colonies to meet pollination demands in the U.S.”

By Seth Borenstein 22 June 2023 WASHINGTON (AP) – America’s honeybee hives just staggered through the second highest death rate on record, with beekeepers losing nearly half of their managed colonies, an annual bee survey found. But using costly and Herculean measures to create new colonies, beekeepers are somehow keeping afloat. Thursday’s University of Maryland […]

Maps showing the global distribution of animals with decreasing (top), stable (middle) or increasing (bottom) populations combining data from all taxonomic groups. Numbers of species were counted within each 1° × 1° grid cell covering the globe, using a Behrmann’s equal area projection. Graphic: Finn, et al., 2023 / Biological Reviews

May 29, 2023

Global loss of biodiversity is significantly more alarming than previously suspected – “Almost half of animals on Earth for which assessments are available are currently declining. To make matters worse, many of the animal species that are thought to be non-threatened from extinction are in fact progressively declining”

23 May 2023 (Queen’s University Belfast) – A new study led by researchers from Queen’s University Belfast has shown that the global loss of biodiversity caused by human industrialisation is significantly more alarming than previously thought. The global-scale analysis has been published in the journal Biological Reviews. The study looked at changes in the population densities […]

A person wearing a carved wooden mask takes part with other people in a march during COP15, the two-week U.N. Biodiversity summit in Montreal, Quebec, Canada on 10 December 2022. Photo: Christinne Muschi / REUTERS

December 10, 2022

Activists dressed as birds and trees rally for nature at COP15 in Montreal – “We see what is happening and it is clearly not sufficient compared to our ambitions and our priorities”

By Gloria Dickie 10 December 2022 MONTREAL (Reuters) – Hundreds of people on Saturday braved sub-zero temperatures to march the streets of Montreal, the host city of this year’s U.N. biodiversity summit, demanding a strong new deal to protect nature worldwide. Wearing costumes to look like birds, trees, and caribou, activists said the COP15 summit could fail […]

Number of Western Monarch butterflies (left) and butterfly surveys (right), 1997-2021. In the western United States, the number of individual butterflies has been steadily decreasing over the past four decades, at a rate of around 1.6% every year, according to a March 2021 study in the journal Science. The iconic Monarch butterfly is one of the species in trouble. Warmer autumn temperatures, an effect of climate change, may be interfering with the butterflies’ hibernation-like period known as diapause. So rather than slowing down ahead of winter, the insects are staying awake longer, expending more energy, and eventually starving to death. In July 2022, the migratory monarch was added to the IUCN’s global endangered species list. Graphic: Catherine Tai / Reuters

December 10, 2022

The collapse of insects – “They’re the fabric tethering together every freshwater and terrestrial ecosystem across the planet”

By Julia Janicki, Gloria Dickie, Simon Scarr and Jitesh Chowdhury 6 December 2022 (Reuters) – As a boy in the 1960s, David Wagner would run around his family’s Missouri farm with a glass jar clutched in his hand, scooping flickering fireflies out of the sky. “We could fill it up and put it by our […]

Phytohormone pools affected by GBH, phosphate fertilizer and their combination in three crop species. Phytohormones, their precursors and metabolites; compounds that were analyzed in this study are indicated with abbreviations after the compound name. Additional compounds (without abbreviations) were added to show common pathway intermediates and to show biosynthetic origins of phytohormones. Chorismate derives from the shikimate pathway which includes the target site of glyphosate. By blocking the EPSPS enzyme, an essential biosynthetic step is corrupted, which is often shown to cause decreased biosynthesis of metabolites synthesized downstream of the shikimate pathway. Centrally placed hexahedron highlights the possible interactions between hormones also known as hormone crosstalk. Symbols (arrows and stops) besides and below metabolites (left side = oat, right = potato, and below = strawberry) indicate the effect of treatment (blue = phosphate, yellow = GBH, blue + yellow = phosphate + GBH) on each plant species corresponding to significances shown in Figure 2 (N = 40). Graphic: Fuchs, et al., 2022 / Frontiers in Plant Science

February 17, 2022

Glyphosate herbicide residues in soil affect hormone levels in crop plants – “Ubiquitous herbicide residues have multifaceted consequences by modulating the hormonal equilibrium of plants”

14 February 2022 (University of Turku) – A new study finds that glyphosate residues in soil affect phytohormones in aboveground plant parts. Academy of Finland funded postdoctoral researcher Dr. Benjamin Fuchs investigates the effects of herbicide residues in soil on plant physiology and chemical ecology of plant-insect interactions. Glyphosate-based herbicides are commonly used to kill […]

Two bird species that are extinct but not listed as such, for fear of committing the “Romeo Error”. Both species are still listed as Critically Endangered by IUCN because of the slim chance that one or more birds may still be alive. Such species are therefore not counted among extinct species, and vast sums of money are often spent in the vain hope that they will be found again. I Left: Eskimo curlew (Numenius borealis (Forster)), from Audubon (1827–1838: plate 208; Wikimedia Commons). Right: Bachman's warbler (Vermivora bachmani (Audubon)), from Audubon (1827–1838: plate 185 (detail); Creative Commons, Rawpixel). Graphic: Wikimedia Commons / Rawpixel

January 19, 2022

Earth on trajectory to Sixth Mass Extinction say biologists – “Including invertebrates is key to confirming that we are indeed witnessing the onset of the Sixth Mass Extinction in Earth’s history”

By Marcie Grabowski 14 January 2022 (UH News) – Mass biodiversity extinction events caused by extreme natural phenomena have marked the history of life on Earth five times. Today, many experts warn that a Sixth Mass Extinction crisis is underway, this time entirely caused by human activities. A comprehensive assessment of evidence of this ongoing […]